Disrupting the Freelance Industry with Ethearnal

The freelancer market has grown into a $1.5 trillion industry, as more and more people consider self-employed opportunities. Ethearnal is looking to bring blockchain technology into this rapidly growing field.

Freelancing – Changing the Way the World Works

Freelancing has completely blown up in recent years, as the internet makes it easier than ever for skilled workers to be matched with clients and employers. People in the fields of graphic design, computer programming, and many other specialty occupations are finding work through online freelancing sites and making a living through those means.

Freelancing also opens employers to people around the world. In traditional jobs, most companies are limited to workers in their immediate geographic area. Freelancing opens up job opportunities to people everywhere, which can, in turn, help the business build a better product. By limiting yourself to candidates close to you, you’d be missing out on thousands of talented individuals across the globe. You can have access to the best people for the job.

Smart Contract Integration

Using smart contract technology, the freelancer industry could become a lot more secure for both freelancer and employer. Smart contracts provide a way to trustlessly make and execute an agreement without anyone being able to manipulate it. Using smart contracts, workers can independently verify the contract to ensure they get paid for their work. Employers can also ensure that the people they hire produce the content they want without getting ripped off.

This is where Ethearnal looks to innovate. They’re developing a smart contract solution to the growing freelancer industry building atop the Ethereum network, and here’s how it works:

Freelancers and Employers can browse and publish listings using a web client, which in turn distributes the listing across a network of peer-to-peer nodes that keeps track of the listings. Freelancers can browse posted job listings, post individual service offerings, or even advertise work at an hourly rate. Employers can then search the listing to find the best fit for the job, or even just create their own job listing and wait to hear back from qualified freelancers looking for work.

The platform runs on the native Ethearnal token, or ERT. This token represents “reputation” on the network. The rep represents the freelancer or the employers standing on the platform, those with more ERT will, in turn, have a higher reputation. Both parties will deposit a previously agreed upon amount into the contract address, and when the work is completed to both party’s liking, the funds are released to the worker. 99% of the funds locked in the contract will be given to the worker upon competition, with the last 1% split between both parties in the form of ERT tokens purchased at market price. This 0.5% to each gives incentive to both parties to have the contract come to a happy conclusion, as the tokens hold monetary value.

Dispute Moderation

A common problem for decentralized applications is how to handle disputes between parties. This issue is solved by Ethearnal’s moderator staking system. A set of moderators will stake an equivalent amount of ERT tokens as the employer and freelancer. In the case of a dispute, a simple majority rules system will decide how to handle the situation. The moderators get a percentage of their staked tokens back for a winning decision, incentivizing them to do what is right when it comes to arguments.

Innovative Project, Innovative ICO

The ERT token will initially be distributed through what Ethearnal is calling “ICO 2.0”. Dubbed by Vitalik Buterin as DAICO, Ethearnal’s ICO 2.0 model is a dynamic spin on the traditional ICO that merges the best characteristics of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) with that of traditional ICOs.

The investors of the ICO decide when and how to distribute the money collected to the developers. Initially, the team will only receive 10% of the funds raised via ICO. The investors now have the ability to vote to release each subsequent 10% of the funds. If the investors are unhappy with the progress of the project, they can either vote to have any remaining funds refunded and end the project or they can choose to have the developers continue to work until they release a product the investors are happy with. Then, and only then, will the next 10% of funding be released to investors.

The timeline for the ICO is also a tad unique. Most ICOs do a presale and subsequent open sales, the sooner you buy in the larger token bonus you receive. Instead of having the whole lot of tokens available at once, the sale offers a dynamic hard cap that changes hour by hour.

The first hour $1000 worth of tokens will be available, with each passing hour the cap for each individual investor increases by another $1000. This means no one large investor can come in and buy up large numbers of tokens in one fell swoop. $1000 per hour means the playing field is leveled for big fish and small. The ICO is set to run from February 28 through March 31, 2018.

How will Ethearnal benefit freelancers and their employers? Do you think their DAICO model is fairer than the traditional ICO? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Ethearnal, AdobeStock

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